Sunday Showcase Review August 25, 1974

I was 7 years old going on 8 in 1974 and Evel Knievel was definitely a boyhood hero for the majority of my Generation X peers. I would have loved to have gotten a ticket to the Snake River Canyon jump which was going to be broadcast on big screen closed circuit TV at Municipal Auditorium on September 8, but I would have to wait like millions more and see it later when ABC's Wide World of Sports showed it. 42 years later Hollywood stuntman, Eddie Braun, would make the jump successfully.

Evel

42 years later

Esther Phillips was coming to the Exit/In

Kudu recording artist Esther Phillip would be playing Exit/In, but notice the blurb at the bottom of the ad: Aug. 25 Special Evening of Music & Entertainment by the cast of Robert Altman's Movie "Nashville." The Altman classic with its massive cast along with hundreds of local extras was being filmed. You could have seen Keith Carradine at the Exit/In back when it was truly a listening room. Then on August 30th you could have gone to the Parthenon as the final concert scene was being shot. "You can be in the movie." 

Keith Carradine "I'm Easy"

Nashville closing scenes SPOILER WARNING Y'ALL

Nashville trailer

The Tennessee State Fair was coming in a few weeks and three music heavyweights had been booked with Mac Davis, Black Oak Arkansas, and Lynyrd Skynyrd coming to play at the Speedway Grandstand. Who would you have seen if you could only see one? 

I can't take no clinging vine

I went to Cal Jam and got hit in the head with a Black Oak Arkansas visor

along comes a Yankee slicker

Wednesday night would be a funktastic trip with Rufus, The Ohio Players, and the mighty Sly & The Family Stone. Sly wasn't the most reliable performer by this point so I wonder if he was on or not on this weeknight show. I hope he was awesome on that particular evening. Sly is an absolute creative giant. 

tell me something good was a top 10 Nashville tune this week

the way you walk and talk really sets me off

Sly live in 1974

Don Sumner, Sean Nielsen, and Tim Beatty were the main guys in Voice which was the legit show band for Elvis. They played at the Villa often. The Tennessean had a nice write up on them a few years ago.

We end this review with a look at the Top 10 Records. Olivia Newton-John honestly loves you and Rufus wants us tell Chaka Khan something good. Donny and Marie left it all up to Eric Clapton to shoot the sheriff. My favorites as a 7 year old going on 8 was "The Night Chicago Died" and "Billy, Don't Be A Hero."  

don't be a fool with your life

a man named Al Capone

Sunday Showcase May 20, 1973

It was Emmy time with Johnny Carson hosting on May 20, 1973. CBS would win the most awards on the night taking 17, ABC gets 11, PBS with 6, and NBC bringing up the rear with just 5 awards. All In The Family and The Waltons are among the series that won an Emmy that night. You can find a complete list at Wikipedia.

I love this headline about ABC sportscasting legend Howard Cosell. I always enjoyed Howard's ponderous way behind the microphone, plus he was later the host of The Battle Of The Network Stars so I can never forget that.

Sound Seventy was bringing Jethro Tull to Municipal Auditorium on May 21 so if you were in the mood for some flute in your rock and roll that would be the place to be on Monday night. If you wanted your flute with a bit softer and less progressive bent you could skip this one and wait to see Lawrence Welk presented by WSIX-TV 8. There was bound to be some flute music to go with the champagne.

Hermitage Landing took out a full page ad in this Sunday Showcase. I would get to go there in the late Seventies and then catch the One For The Sun concert there in 1984.

KDA-FM & Woodland Sound Studio were presenting the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band live on the air that Sunday night. Years later my folks were looking for a new place to rent and we toured a house that had a small upstairs bedroom which featured a poster of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band left by the former tenants. We didn't move into this house, but that room with the poster still figures in my memories. I like to think all of our lives are filled with such ephemera, but perhaps not. 

Once again The Villa features a band posing with a train. If there are any train buffs that recognize the train or know anything about Carnival let me know in the comments.

Boston band Orphan was coming to play a few days at Exit-In. The Showcase mentions they have country overtones and I'd have to agree.

If you were a businessman working downtown you could get your lunch at the world famous Red Lion Lounge. I think 6 hours of continuous Go-Go and exotic entertainment would be a bit much.

The Eagles were still at the small theater stage of their career, but wouldn't be for long. They were playing War Memorial Auditorium on June 3 with the always great Charlie Daniels  opening for them. My opinion of The Eagles waxes and wanes, but it is interesting to me that there was a time when The Eagles were considered a cult band. 

My opinion of Elvis Presley however never changes. He was and always will be the King of Rock and Roll for me. My mother was from North Mississippi just a few counties over from Tupelo and she moved to Memphis in the Fifties. Elvis was her favorite musical artist much to my father's consternation. Elvis was coming later in the summer to Municipal and the shows were already sold out. 

All that's left for this week's Sunday Showcase review is the Top 10 Records list and its a fairly wide range of styles which was very typical in the Seventies. There's some soul, some country, some hard rock, country, and an ex-Beatle all showing up this week. "Frankenstein" would be my favorite of this bunch, but Canadian group Skylark featuring future mega producer David Foster and the amazing vocal talents of Donny Gerrard is pretty awesome too. I learned something watching the "Frankenstein" live video or perhaps I knew it once and forgot it, but the song's title comes from how it was edited down with different pieces of tape comprising the final version.

Skylark

Edgar Winter Group live version of Frankenstein

Next week I'm going through a 1976 Sunday Showcase so be sure to wear some Bicentennial themed clothes.

Sunday Showcase April 2, 1972

How could I resist a Sunday Showcase with The Brady Bunch on the cover. This was probably the peak original run Brady's since the show still had a couple of seasons left to go. It was and always will be one of my favorite television shows ever made. There's no story on them inside, but the cover alone will do. 

This Sunday Showcase April 2, 1972 review is brought to us by Fotomat's everywhere. I'm afraid the special offer is expired. 

This commercial is from 1976...let's pretend it's 1972

Neil Diamond was set to play his first concert ever in Nashville a few weeks later on April 16th. The talented songwriter had become a big time performer too and was well on his way to becoming the mega-star we know today. I am curious though as to why the advertisement for him seems to have a photo of Lou Reed instead of Neil. I've added a photo of Lou circa 1972 for comparison and even though Lou wasn't about to play Nashville until decades later I'm adding a tune from him too. 

  

This is Neil Diamond - he's great

This is Lou Reed - he's vicious

The Villa is once again promoting "Bandito Nite" which makes me wonder whether you are supposed to dress up like a "bandito" or whether you are supposed to come stick up the place. 

Eddy Dee and The Blues Express are the highlighted act fresh from a stint playing the Playboy Club in Chicago. More questions....why did so many musical acts pose in front of trains? I think I will have to have a separate blog post about this mystery. Eddy "Dee" Dempley was a fairly well known blues singer back in the day and he also played a mean saxophone too. 

Eddy Dee rocks!

The King was coming, but not to Nashville. If you wanted to see Elvis Presley on April 8th you'd have to journey east on I-40 and see him in Knoxville at the Stokely Center. You can get the whole rundown of this performance right here. 

Bootleg of some of this Knoxville show

If you head back to Nashville the morning after Elvis you can enjoy an evening of rock with Lee Michaels along with openers Osibisa and Jo Jo Gunne. Lee Michaels is one of those artists that was popular enough to play Municipal, yet I can't think of any of his songs (and then I stand corrected later). My friend DD Blank likes him. I guess I can begin to acquaint myself better with Lee Michaels by posting a tune from him.

Ok - I did know this tune...I just always forget it's by Lee Michaels - he's cool

Every Sunday Showcase also included a handy capsule guide to all of the sports that would be on TV that week. Sports were not as omnipresent as they are now (well, at least until this pandemic), but they still took up a good chunk of the time especially on the weekend. I would have been most interested about the NBA and ABA basketball, the pro wrestling, and Wide World of Sports since there was no baseball on yet. 

A little bit of Dr. J operating

The Top 10 Records are a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll with Donny Osmond and the Osmonds taking two of the spots. America sits atop the list with their best Neil Young homage. I love Joe Tex's funky soul. The most interesting tune in the Top 10 for me is Giorgio Moroder's "Son Of My Father" which only made it up to 46 on the Billboard charts. 

Joe Tex on Soul Train (a Saturday morning viewing staple for me then)

felt good to be out of the rain

Moroder!

Thus ends another Sunday Showcase review. The Lord willing, the creek don't rise, and the virus don't get me I'll have another one of these up next week for some other year from the 60's, 70's, 80's, and maybe one day a 90's one too. 

Sunday Showcase February 11, 1973

It's the Flintstones On Ice and Duke Ellington gracing the cover of this week's Sunday Showcase. Let's take the A train all the yabba dabba doo way back to February 11, 1973.

That very Sunday on the radio you had a choice of classical performances to enjoy, but most interesting for me is the different formats and call letters of several of the stations from today. FM radio was really catching on, but the big hitters were still on the AM band with WMAK and WLAC being the two big pop music ones.

The number one tune in Nashville for this week was "Dueling Banjos" which I have always loved. It also gives me a guidepost to where I was living then. I believe my family was a few months away from moving back to Murfreesboro. We had moved to Mississippi the previous year and my parents ran a place called Rainey's Cafe in Ripley. There was a jukebox and I remember I would dance when "Dueling Banjos" played. I really enjoyed being the center of attention back then. It's a really solid Top Ten with The Sweet, Elvis Presley, and Jim Croce making appearances. 

There were many coming attractions on their way to Nashville from superstar pop groups like The 5th Dimension to Guy Lombardo. Just check out this ad below which you can always make bigger by clicking on.

You could go see Jim Dandy and the Black Oak Arkansas bunch along with Nils Lofgren's band Grin in a few weeks as they were booked at the War Memorial Auditorium. Not only was there a Sgt. Pepper's record store in Rivergate there was also a Sgt. Pepper's in Hillsboro Village. It was billed as a Whole Earth Store.

The Exit/In would show movies some nights back in the early 70's. Legendary songwriter Townes Van Zandt was playing during this week Wednesday through Saturday with a live broadcast on KDA FM. Yes, that's right it was KDA FM. Just scroll back up to the Sunday on the radio photo for confirmation. WKDA FM was progressive rock and WKDA AM was country. So the progressive station is broadcasting a show by a folk/country performer. That's one thing I love about the past; compartmentalized demographic research had not yet taken over radio. 

I'm too young to remember much of the early 70's Nashville so I have never heard of this place called the Villa. When I saw the ad I figured it was a restaurant that featured soup. Like real soup. But then later on in the Showcase I discover that the Soup is actually a group. Just check out their photo. I don't about you, but I bet they were either awesome or awful. Perhaps both. This is one place I would love to hear more about. Are there any people around who joined the Villa Mafia back in the day? I would love to hear from you. 

I wonder if the hippies who lived on the Farm would like the Soup? I doubt it, but Stephen Gaskin and the Farm Band would be performing a free concert at the War Memorial Auditorium on Wednesday of this week in 1973. I wonder if the "cultist teacher" part of the notice was provided to The Tennessean or if they inserted it? Gaskin did cofound the Farm, but I never thought of its residents as being part of a cult. The few people I've met from there over the years always seem pretty cool.

The biggest concert coming up was the return of David Bowie and The Spiders From Mars to War Memorial Auditorium on February 23, 1973. Note the photo insert telling us the return show will be expanded both in length and content, with the addition of saxophones, piano, and a new drummer. 

      

From the last Ziggy Stardust performance at the Hammersmith Odeon later in 1973.